My Dog Tags Are Not A Fashion Statement

This is a first-person memoir of a fourteen-year-old girl who had been going to all-girl Catholic convent schools for the past seven years. When her Army father received orders to the U. S. Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany in June of 1956, she is hurled into a different world that is both foreign and frightening. In a short, whirlwind year, she moves from school uniforms and nuns to a rock and roll culture and boys, transplanted into a strict military enclave in Germany. She finds herself coping with a new language, new rules of social engagement, new friends, first love, the remains of the World War and the omni-present specter of the Cold War turning hot. The year transforms her from tomboy to young woman, and the experience leaves a lasting impression on her future.